


Metamorphosis

by venndaai



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Nonbinary Mal, Other, Vampire Polly, darkish au, implied gore, nonbinary Polly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Ten years after becoming a soldier, Polly wakes up to find that something has changed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a dark-ish future where Polly and Blouse have taken control of the Borogravian army and conquered quite a lot of the former Evil Empire.
> 
> I wrote this hc-ing that Polly is also nonbinary, but decided to use she/her pronouns for her and they/them for Mal, pretty much on a coin flip. I might change that if I write more with these characters.

Polly woke up- something of a surprise, but Igorina'd pulled off less likely things before- opened her eyes, and then squeezed them tightly shut because everything had gone alarmingly strange. Too bright, definitely, but also the canvas aboveground her had been... so detailed, somehow. Polly was sure she'd seen every crack down to the millimeter, even with the bright, bright sunlight shining through.

"Oh goodth," she heard Igorina say. "I wath beginning to think theed thleep all dthay."

Her voice was perfectly calm, but a lisp that strong meant she was quite stressed and trying to hide it.

"Polly."

Mal.

She risked raising her eyelids just a crack, and turned her head to the side. Through the protection of her helpfully thick eyelashes she saw a blurry shape that slowly resolved into a vampire sitting very close to her- cot, she had to be on a cot- but leaning back in a calculatedly relaxed slouch, light brown face significantly paler than usual. Sipping a cup of coffee very elegantly.

"Good morning, Colonel," Mal said, and then glanced down into the coffee. Polly felt her headache intensify. After ten years she could easily recognize guilt when it was written all over her first lieutenant.

Polly thought about her hand, and found that she could feel it. She twitched the fingers a little, and then raised her had up and across, feeling her way across her bare chest. No hole. No stitches.

She closed her eyes, lay there and catalogued the information coming from her body. No pain at all, except in her head and. Her neck.

"Mal," she said. Low but extremely edged so as to make it clear that it could very rapidly become quite loud indeed. Her voice ought to have come out as a croak, that was traditional after waking up in a makeshift infirmary, but instead it sounded alarmingly smooth and musical.

"Well excuse me," Mal said. "I do apologize so much for saving your _bbbloody_ life."

"That isn't technically what you did, is it?"

Mal growled quietly.

Polly risked worsening her headache by looking at them again. They were pulling black threads out of the lacy sleeve of their uniform with the hand not holding their cup.

"The boys," Polly said.

"Already dead when I found you," Mal said, and now the misery was clear in their voice behind the thin facade of blitheness. "I... I thought you probably were too. I still had to try." They looked up at her. "Poll, please. I was supposed to just let you die?"

"Dying's what soldiers do," Polly said, and then reluctantly felt herself soften when Mal's face crumpled. "All right, all right," she said, and felt anger and resentment rise up, because it wasn't all right at all.

"Not that you really care about my opinionth," Igorina said from Polly's other side, "but the lieutenanth did the righth thing. Blouth can't keep thith war running on hith own."

Yes. She knew that. And it wasn't like she wanted to be dead. But-

"I hate to bring it up," Mal said, "but we should probably talk about finding you a replacement for- you know what. I know you don't like coffee much-"

"Can you both _PLEASE_ give me a few hours to process this," Polly shouted, in the voice that didn’t sound like hers any more.

Mal leaned back, then stood up and brushed imaginary dirt off their skirt. "Of course," they said. "We'll talk later."

"I'd like to do thome tethth-" Igorina began.

"NO," Polly said. She sat up, grabbed a bubbling beaker out of Igorina’s hands, and flung it against a tentpole. Very fast and very hard.

“Oh, will you look ath thath,” Igorina said, mostly disgruntled but with a slight quiver in her voice. She pulled a large sliver of glass out of her shoulder. “That’ll need stitching. The uniform and the skin. Thankth _so_ much.”

“It’d probably be best if you didn’t do that in front of the troops,” Mal said. There were a few bits of glass in their hair and lodged in their uniform, but they shook themselves off like a cat and they all twinkled to the ground. They fished a large piece out of their coffee cup. “The masses usually aren’t understanding of this sort of thing.”

“I won’t,” Polly said. “I didn’t know how strong I was. Now I do.” She tried to sound firm and confident.

“Right,” Mal said. “I’m going to go tell the rupert you’re… not dead.”

 

* * *

  
  


It was about an hour later that Annie entered the tent, somewhat hesitantly. Igorina had left by then; she was probably the busiest person in the whole army, and wasn’t about to hang around nursemaiding a colonel who wasn’t actually ill. Polly felt restless enough to run twenty laps around the camp, but she didn’t feel up to facing the daylight and the loudness of a camp full of soldiers. That was what she wasn’t ready to face, she told herself firmly. Only that.

“Very glad to see you all right, sir,” Annie said fervently, standing to attention at the foot of the cot. Polly was sitting at the other end, knees pulled up against her chest. Annie handed her a shirt. Polly pulled it on tiredly.

Annie had been recommended by Sergeant Atkins. Atkins kept an eye on the other girls like her, made sure they didn’t end up under officers who might make their lives hell. She’d noticed that Annie was too smart for her own good, and sent her to Polly. Annie was tall and wore her brown hair long. She was Zlobenian, and a bit touchy about it, from what Polly overheard when her soldiers talked too loud. There were a lot more Zlobenians in the army now than in the first few years after the annexation, but they were still likely to be given a hard time about it. And yet many of them were the most loyal soldiers in the army- Polly, Blouse and the army they had taken apart and remade gave some people the chance to get out of very bad situations and into a life that was violent and often short but at least you got less shit for choosing your own name. Where nobody gave a damn about sin and abominations and whether the people in your tiny village had hated you.

Annie was probably the best aide-de-camp Polly’d ever had, but she had a bad case of hero worship which Polly had been trying to break her of. Her eyes were wide as she handed Polly a cup of steaming tea. Polly hoped that was a sign of relief and not of… nervousness.

“Sir,” Annie said, hesitant again, and proferred the small shaving mirror which was her own property but which Polly often used to check that her hair wasn’t sticking up too wildly. Polly put down the tea cup so she could take the mirror.

Her scars were still present, she was relieved to see. She’d earned those scars, damn it. But she was altogether too pale, and her eyes… weren’t brown any more. Her face looked more angular somehow. Not more feminine, thank… someone… but- different. Her bloodless skin seemed to have smaller pores, and all blemishes were gone. It was really bloody weird. She looked younger.

“Thank you,” she said, handing the mirror back again. She picked up her tea, automatically inhaling the steam and then taking a sip. It didn’t taste as good as usual. She was hungry, damn it, she didn’t want tea, she wanted-

The tent seemed smaller and hotter. Polly tried to scoot back on the cot, away from Annie, as subtly as she could.

Thankfully, Annie didn’t seem to notice. “The General wants to see you at your earliest convenience, sir.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in half an hour.” She could actually hear the girl’s heartbeat, for- someone’s- sake. This was completely ridiculous and terrible. She drank more of her tea.

Annie was still standing there. “That’ll be all, Lieutenant,” Polly said sharply.

The girl saluted neatly, and left, closing the tent flap behind her.

 

* * *

  
  


It was midday, and hot, when Polly made herself exit the tent. It wasn’t just sight and sound which assaulted her then- it was smell, the smell of soldiers and horses, cookfires, the ditches used as privies. Mal wasn’t anywhere to be seen- of course not, it would be stupid to expect them to have waited around outside her tent for so long. Thankfully she didn’t have to go all the way across the camp to get to the General’s tent. The soldiers she passed all fell silent, and whispered when they incorrectly thought she was out of earshot.

If people gave her a bit of space where she walked, well, that had been happening ever since she’d been soldiering long enough to change a bit physically, become someone bulky that you didn’t want to start shit with. And that hadn’t been bad at all. This would probably be the same thing, only… magnified. Yes.

Blouse was bent over a map, totally engrossed, and didn’t notice her entrance until she coughed. He looked up. “Ah, Colonel Perks,” he said, enthusiastically. “So glad to see you’ve recovered. You looked so dreadful when Captain Maladict brought you back, we all quite feared for you. It would have been a terrible blow to the campaign if you’d succumbed. I shall have to compliment the good doctor on her skills.”

Polly stared at him. “Captain Maladict?” she said, eventually.

“Oh, yes, I promoted h- I do apologize, them, last night,” Blouse said. “I felt such a daring rescue called for a reward.”

“Right,” Polly said. “Sir, do you have a problem with…” She made a vague gesture towards herself.

Blouse blinked at her. “With what?”

He wasn’t going to notice, Polly realized, unless she told him, and he might not even then. She ought not to have been astonished, having known him for so long, but somehow, she was.

“Nothing, sir,” she said. “I… I’m sorry I lost the squad. They were… good men.”

“From what the Captain told me, you were outnumbered three to one,” Blouse said. “Did you get the information?”

“Yes.”

“Then they did not die in vain. Perhaps that will give comfort to their families. And we will posthumously award medals, of course.”

“Of course,” Polly said, tiredly. She didn’t really feel tired, though. She wanted to. She wanted to stop staring at Blouse’s bobbing adam’s apple. She produced the long leather tube and removed the rolled up sheet of paper. Luckily the leather had protected it from her blood.

“Let’s see it,” Blouse said excitedly, and Polly spread the schematic out on the table, trying not to be too dramatic about it.

She couldn’t make heads or tails of da Quirm’s design, but Blouse apparently could, because he kept exclaiming, and tracing certain bits with a finger.

“Do you think you can find a weakness?” Polly asked.

“Oh, I can already see one,” Blouse said. “Now we must simply come up with a way to exploit it.”

“Once you do,” Polly said, “I’d like your permission to take a small group and go on ahead of the main force. I think we can get into the enemy camp and disable some of those machines without any need for a head on assault.”

And she’d be away from this tight concentration of people, all full of warm- the b word.

“I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have made you colonel,” Blouse said, “since you so often insist on acting like a scout. You’re not expendable, Perks.”

“With respect, sir,” Polly said, “I’m not expendable precisely because I can do things like this. And you promoted me so I could shout at more people.”

“Ye-es,” Blouse said, somewhat vaguely. “Colonel… are you… is there something wrong with your…”

He was staring at Polly’s lips. No, she realized, not her lips. Her teeth.

“Fine,” Polly said, and started to produce a reassuring smile before realizing that would be counterproductive. “Fine,” she mumbled through tightly pressed lips.

“If you say so,” Blouse said, and turned eagerly back to the design.

 

* * *

  


“I’m coming with you,” Mal said, slouched against a tree, a lit cigarette dangling from their mouth.

A day before, Polly would have been startled and annoyed by their sudden appearance. Now she was very aware of all movements around them. And most of all aware of Mal. Polly could feel Mal, like a gray psychic cloud of emotion crackling on the edge of her awareness.

“That’s a stupid idea,” Polly said. “You have to stay with Blouse and keep him from doing anything ill advised.”

“Polly,” Mal said. “You haven’t picked a focus yet.”

“I’m fine,” Polly said. “Stop badgering me.”

“You can’t stop me from coming,” Mal said, with an air of finality. “Cigarette?”

“You know I don’t smoke any more.”

“Can’t blame a vampire for trying.”

“All right,” Polly said finally. “Bring Beaky and Toffer.”

“Annie wants to come too.”

“Annie?” Then, “She talked to you?”

“She’s frightfully keen, isn’t she?”

“She’s got no experience in the field.”

“As I recall,” Mal said, “Neither did a certain group of young cheesemongers when they saved the Borogravian army that one time.”

Polly conceded the point.

 

* * *

  


They had three-quarters of the distance covered when they ran into trouble.

“Okay,” Mal said, “let’s all calm down. We really don’t want to hurt you.”

The Genuan soldiers looked at them, and then at each other. Counting came much faster to Polly than it had before. Twelve of them, to four Borogravian soldiers, and the Genuans were significantly more armed.

“Before you make any ill-considered moves,” Mal said, “I would like to direct your attention to this ribbon I’m wearing…”

One of the Genuans raised his crossbow and pointed it at Annie, who took a step back, eyes widening.

Thirty seconds later, Mal said, into the stunned silence, “Lieutenant, privates, if you coullld… steppp back a bit for a minnnute…” Then, softly and carefully, “Colonel, I think they’rre verrry definitely dead now. You can, uhm, put that one down…”

Polly couldn’t remember ever hearing Mal “uhm” before. She dropped the body she was clutching and turned around, wiping the blood from her mouth with one sleeve. Mal had gone pale and was twitching a little. They had reached one hand into their coat and were pulling out something suspiciously wooden and sharp.

“Oh, relax, Mal,” Polly said, except halfway through the sentence she had to stop to spit something out. She took a step towards the other officer. “I’m fine.”

“Great!” Mal said, smiling desperately. “Just stay there one second, okay?”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Polly took another step forward.

Mal brandished the stake, somewhat wildly. “I’m not sure you should go near the lads and lass just now, sir, all right?”

“I do apologize so much for saving our bloody lives,” Polly said, sarcastically.

Mal stared at her, and Polly felt the air between them twang with the- the _other_ vampire’s frustration. That was what Mal was now, the other vampire. “The river’s nearby,” Mal said. “Let’s go and wash. Yes. Let’s do that.”

They turned just enough to address Annie, Beaky and Toffer. “Kids,” they said, “I’m orrrrdering you to go back to camp right now, we’ll catch up in a little bit, and _if you ever breathe a fucking word of this to anyone especially the General I will perrsonally tear up this black ribbon and then rip your throats out do you understand?_ ”

Three voices chimed in a ragged high frightened chorus, “Yessir!”

“Good, good. Run along now.”

“What if we run into more Genuans, sir?”

“They won’t have two squads patrolling the same area this far from the army.”

“But what if they do, sir?”

“Use your damn initiative, kid.”

Polly stood still in the middle of the clearing, head cocked slightly, listening to the sounds of their soldiers stumbling back through the woods.

“Shit!” Mal screamed, in a strangled whisper.

“Mal, calm down, I’m fine.”

“I’m not!” Mal said, angry and on the edge of hysteria. “There’s bbblood all over you! All over my damn uniform! And you know it’ll be hard to replace!” True, since Mal insisted on refusing either the traditional uniform or Atkins’ practical redesign in favor of the absurd version the old men had come up with, with its lacy skirt and flounces, and most offensively of all actually looked good wearing it. It was spattered darker in spots now, though red at least didn’t show up much on black and a different red.

“You’ve been in messy fights before,” Polly said.

“This is different!”

“Fine,” Polly said. “Let’s go wash.”

She stalked towards the river, which tumbled loudly over rocks, ringing in her ears. Mal followed along. Polly could smell Mal’s jangling nerves.

When they got to the river Polly peeled off shirt and trousers and stood in the freezing cold water. She felt a sense of triumph. She’d known Mal was always being a lying baby about feeling cold.

She said, “I told you, I’m fine,” yet again, because Mal did not appear to be calming down.

She was better than fine. The hunger had been satisfied, and Polly felt strong, clever, fearless.

“You’ve got-” Mal gestured. “Bits. In your hair.”

“Ugh.” She plunged her head under the water, stayed there for a while, enjoying not needing to breathe. When she surfaced Mal was crouched on a rock on the river bank in their undershirt, stained uniform in the water below, pinned under a much smaller rock. Mal had their head in their hands and looked utterly miserable.

“I fucked up,” Mal said.

“Look,” Polly said, kindly. “I’m not angry with you any more. It’s okay.”

“You didn’t even drink their bbblood.”

Polly scoffed. “Would you rather I _had_?”

“Yes, actually! That would have made _sense_! I have some experience with bloodsuckers, you know! Instead…”

“Instead what?”

“Killing’s your replacement,” Maladict said. “Isn’t it.”

“I don’t know why you’re so bent out of shape over this,” Polly said. The water felt so good. “I only killed the enemy. I’m completely under control. You know I’ve killed a lot more than twelve people over the last ten years. My count must be in the triple digits by now- much higher if you count indirectly. So why are you suddenly so concerned?”

She splashed water on her face. Everything was so wonderfully clear and bright, now that she’d adjusted.

It had felt so good.

“Oh _fuck_ I’ve fucked up,” Mal moaned.

Polly jumped onto her own rock, on the other side of the river from Mal’s. “Put down the stake, Mal,” she said, good-humoredly. “You said yourself, I’m too valuable to lose.”

Mal’s fingers clenched around the piece of wood, and then they threw it into the water. “I never fucking said that,” Mal said. “Not me.” They turned away, began walking barefoot into the forest without their clothes.

“Mal,” Polly said, and _moved_ , and was across the river and at their shoulder without even thinking about it. “Mal, come on. Teach me how to turn into bats. We can get to the camp in an hour and blow up all their silly machines before they realize we’re there.”

“And you’d be satisfied with that, would you?” Mal asked. “Just in and out, undetected? No need to personally rip any heads off? Don’t lie to me. You’re desperate for another hit and you’d get us both killed. Even two vampires should know better than to go up against an entire army.”

“FINE,” Polly said. “We’ll go back and get the lads and Annie. Look, I’d be happy to just hang around for a couple days until you’re personally satisfied that I’m not going to snap and use them as juiceboxes but we really don’t have the time and you know it.”

Mal came to a halt, and their shoulders dropped.

“Oh, you idiot,” Polly said. She reached out, put a hand on Mal’s clammy bare arm. “I’m still me. Promise.” She pulled at them, making an effort to do so lightly.

They swung around, and to her embarrassment, burst into tears.

“Er,” she said.

“I’m so sorry,” Mal wailed. “I’ve seen so many dead people and I didn’t want you to be one of them, I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and have to remember that you were dead, I don’t think I would be able to stay in the army and this _god damned bloody army_ is all I fucking have!” They scrubbed at their eyes, which were leaking red. At least vampires didn’t get snotty when they cried. That would be too inelegant. “But I’ve cocked that up anyway, haven’t I. I need to- I don’t know. There are people in the League who know a lot more than me about this. A lot of them don’t really like us since, you know, we invaded Uberwald, but it’s in their best interest not to have a maladjusted vampire running amok.”

“I can’t,” Polly said, reasonably. “I don’t have the time. This mission is vital, and even if it works, and Blouse can manage to take advantage, and they have the good sense to accept a truce after we trounce them- _if_ we manage to trounce them- there’ll be months of negotiations at least and you know all of High Command put together can’t negotiate their way out of a dark privy at night. Maybe after that, though.”

“Yeah,” Mal said. “Maybe.”

They looked so despondent. Polly sighed. “Look, Mal-” she said, and then stopped, and looked down at the piece of wood in her chest.

Mal said, quickly, “I’m sorry, I’ll sort this out, you’ll just poof and I’ll reconstitute you once we’re at League headquarters, this is for your own good and I _promise_ you’ll thank me later- I hope-”

“You complete bastard,” Polly said, and then experienced the very unpleasant sensation of turning into a small pile of ash.

“That’s fair,” Mal said.


End file.
